Escape to Brecon beacons

I couldn't agree more Michael McIntyre that the last week of the year is the most confused one. You don't know what day it is, you don't know what is expected from you, this week and if you are in UK you obviously don't know how the weather gonna be. Although all the above were true, we actually knew one thing for sure, an escape definitely on the cards. After some deliberation and debate over location we found our escape: Talybont-on-usk, a small village near the bank of River Usk in South Wales. A small quiet village with loads of walks did fit our bill. So we packed our bags and started our journey...

Travel to Talybont-on-Usk

Its ages since I wrote a  travelogue. Hence let me say things have changed. "Us" now means its me and my wife along with others! and now in this land I can drive hence, the choices of escape has improved. Its nearly 2.5-3 hrs. drive to South Wales from Caversham. It was on Boxing day and we set off bit late in the day and found relatively empty M4. We took the toll road, and went straight to Wales. A40 to Usk valley was quite scenic.

Talybont-on-usk

Malt house in Talybont-on-Usk

Loft room in this 1820 built house

We had booked a family run B&B accommodation, Malt house in Talybont. Its a nice place, and river Caerfanell flows almost through the property, we could hear noise from the flowing river sleeping on the cosy bed. Weather on this part of UK during winter is quite unpredictable and we had prepared ourselves to the fact that we might have to stay indoor for few days. However to our surprise it wasn't that bad when we arrived in Talybont-on-Usk in the afternoon.

Remains of 200 years old Tramroad

       Its a village with loads of activities: few pubs, one river, one old Canal and several bike and walking routes and with some rich history. One particularly interested me, the history of tramways and the train road around the the valley, none of them are there at present but their existences are wrapped around the village. Tramways ran before 1850s, as popularity of the train grew, the tram line came to an halt in the second half of the 19th century, the train line experienced the same fate in the second half of 20th century when running train services in that part of Wales became non profitable! The waterway canal is also very old and heard stories about breaches once in a while, still its a tourist attraction and probably that is still keeping it alive. 

The walk

Walking route (map here)

Valley from Binnore Tramroad

One of the popular tourist attraction near Talybont-on-usk is ~400 meter long reservoir on Caerfanell river. The walk to the reservoir from Talybont is through the scenic Usk valley. we decided to take the Taff trail starting behind the white hart inn. This trail actually followed the old Brinnore Tramroad , although there are no tracks, but stones laid for the track are still there, we took that trail to go to the reservoir. Weather on 29th December was beautiful, a day before the storm Frank hit Wales. The trail passes through the scenic valleys, farms which forms the landscape. After initial climb for 15 min, the trail was pretty flat and easy. Saturated ground was bit of a pain, still in winter, a quiet trail with fantastic weather was already a rarity. The reservoir took almost 45-60 min. In the middle the trail bisects; we could either decide to go along the Taff trail or go to the reservoir, we did something in between. Reservior was not a huge one but of decent size to produce clean energy for the area. It was full. Again scenic Brecon hills surrounds the area.

Valley from the reservoir

Talybont reservior

From the reservoir we decided to follow the MTB bike trail crossing the Aber village. This is a asphalt road through the farms and straight climb till we reached the end of the asphalt road.River Clydach flows along side the trail, rarely in India I had an opportunity to see a river from start to finish in couple of hours! well, Clydach gave us that opportunity, which we declined to take! After the road ended there are couple of farm house and multiple farm gates with direction for the bikers. Once we made to the soft ground, the over-saturated soft trail made

the walking bit challenging, but the trail was beautiful. We had to cross couple of small stream and Clydach. Eventually the trail lead us to another road inside the woods, we got to see a glimpse of Brecon's forest if not a full fledged forest walk. We wanted to complete the MTB trail, however it was already getting darker, even a sunny day couldn't be stretched beyond 16:00 . So we decided to the head back to Talybont through the farms. This stretch of the walk presented a different landscape. Fading sun brightening up before setting washed  the valley and painted it golden, rain soaked valley was soaking the sun, we too, it was blissful! Although farm animals didn't particularly enjoyed our alien chorus songs, we loved their presence. It was time to call the best walk of the year a day. We walked back to Talybont crossing the Canal and back to our hotel. The complete walk, with breaks took us around 4 hours and it was nearly 7.5 miles. 

Food 

Although few, pubs in Talybont are quite well known. On the first evening we had food in the All star inn,  appeared to be quite a popular place among the locals. Food was almost home cooked, fresh and tasty with very friendly staff. We had supper in white hart inn the next day. Food was as good as the all star. We dont know it was especially for that specific day, we were told the kitchen would close at 19:30. Price in both places were similar and we felt pretty reasonable.

Description of wonderful food wouldn't be complete if I dont mention the awesome breakfast that we had in the Malthouse. Heavy English breakfast with fresh juices, eggs and Honey from the farm, you cant ask for more. Thanks Mike for that.

Way back

Storm Frank had hit the shore in the night and the only option for us was to head back to Caversham. Although I thought drive through treacherous roads wont be nice but wasn't that bad. Because they were mostly empty untill we hit M4. 

we ended the year filled with tranquillity, it was a trip worth making and would love to come back to one of the breathing space of Britain

  

  

Scotch!!

"It isn't for the faint hearted".....the scottish man added " 3000 ft this side 3000 ft otherside, you need to be a expert trekker" However we never went to the Aonach Eagach, but tried couple of famous walks in the Scotish highlands, the best place on earth for landscape. I knew it was going to be very different trek than what we have experienced in India. We were all set to enjoy the highlands of Scotland

Early autumn, might get you the best or can deliver the worst, but me and Santanu had to take the chance. Hence, we decided to travel during early september. I must say we were half lucky.

Great Glen

The Great Glen fault was created 400 million years ago. It runs from Inverness to Fort william with a distance around 100 km. It cuts the Scotish higlands into two parts and gave birth to UK's deepest fresh water lake, Loch ness. However, the fault doesn't stop there and it extends towards the sea beyond fort william. This fault actually gave rise to beautiful landsacpe which attracts many tourists all through the year, with a larger traffic during summers. Although the the altitude of the peaks in this range is not very high but its a steep climb up to the peaks. Not all the walks are difficult, but certainly few are ! Through the great Glen the most famous walk is called great Glen way. Its a 73 miles walk stretching from Fort willim to Inverness. It takes 4-5 days to cover the complete Glen path, we didn't have that many days so we decided to go to few places along the Great Glen way and far south. The most famous hiking place on the Glenway is Ben nevis, the higest Peak in UK. So we decided upon our plan this way: Travel from London-Inverness from Inverness to Fortwilliam. Next day Ben Nevis and back to fortwillam to Glencoe. Next day Trek to pap of Glencoe, Glencoe to Fortwilliam and from Fort william to Inverness. Next day Inverness and Urqhart Castle, back to Inverness and to London. No doubts quite a bit of travel, but we thought its worth....

Fort william

I had few speechless moments when it was dusk at fort Fort william. Tired bodies got its energy back in the middle of a postcard lands scape. Journey to Fortwilliam was a long one. From London Inverness is around 740 km by Coach, and Fort william is 100 km from there. Me and Jacks (Santanu) started our journey from London victoria. We took Megabus! Double decker travelled quite well but there were annoying passengers, the bus stopped at Birmingham, Then Gallsgow. Were were dropped at Perth from where the otherbus took us to Inverness. To keep my reputation on having troubled journey was intact as the bus we were suposed to catch broke down. Once it was dawn, the landscapes were quite captivating. I was not aware the bus route from Inverness to Fort william was along the bank of Loch Ness. Life goes full cirle....I read about Loch ness at a pretty young age, there was an article in "pujabarsiki" "anandamela". Not to mention mystery and apprehension with darkness was the only thing in mind...but the beauty of loch ness caught me speechless. Although tired, we didn't miss the opprtunity to catch the beauty of Loch Ness. There are couple of popular tourist spot on the way to Fortwilliam. Urqhart castle and Fort Augustus. We had booked our tickets in the City link bus service operated by stage coaches 919 service. the ticket was 7 pounds. we reached beautiful town of Fortwilliam around 5 pm. There was a Morrisons stores at the bus and train station, we bought our food from there and walked to our night stay place at Fort william backpackers. Rain welcomed us there, but the hostel, however was bit cramped but i must say the best place to see the landscape...a leasure walk before the diner along the bank of Loch Linhe was truly amazing. The town unfolded its beauty as the coluds paved away roads for piercing sunrays. Rainbows and evening soft light provided really nice warmth. The town centre isn't far away from the station, if you reach before the market closes, expensive gift shops and stores are really good place to pay a visit. We had nice indian diner that night and crashed at the scotish battle fields (thats how they identified the bunks at the hostel!) , next day we were up to Ben Nevis.

Ben Nevis
There are few walks which will take you to the main Ben Nevis walk way. There are tonns of maps available on the web about the trail, but it isn't is a problem of loosing way on the hills once you strike the Ben nevis path rest was quite defined trail. We walked trough the Belford road towards the youth hostel in Fort william. donot take the north road, walk straight for about 2 miles, when you will see the Glen Nevis centre. The Parking place, a nice centre and walk begins here. You will see the directions marked here. There is a small wodden bridge over the Nevis river and thn the trail follow. The next landmark is the Achintee farm and once we crossed that we could see the Ben nevis Inn. Once we crossed the medow. The Climb began. It well paved trails was nice to walk on, but the weather was not so welcoming. The climb was alright except the rain made the way bit slippery. The Roller coaster life made me realize, i was going for a trek after 3 years. So i was slow, and the weather added to the woes. As we ascended the hill the breathtaking landscape started to appear. You can look at the Landscape and thank yourself that you have decided to trek in that weather. That motivated us to catch out breath and appreciate the landscape. The weather started getting worse and visibility was falling short with every meter we we climbing. We had our first food break on the bank of the lake Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe and we didn't realize it till we climbed up slightly and the cloud allowed us a view. We took pleanty of food as our journey wasn't going to get over at Ben Nevis. We had very nice highland walk guidance from here. We were follwing every direction but my cramps was slowing us down. There was a straight climb from there. There was nothing mentionable on the walk, just follow the trail among the stones. We almost reached the peak, but the weather became extremely worse, visibility was poor, rain cloud, heavy load on the back. Led us to descend.

Glen Coe

There are several city link and stage couch options to reach Glencoe. We took the citylink bus to reach Glencoe village. I have heard that place is good, but i was speechless. It took us 1 hr to reach Glencoe. The landscape was breath taking. Lake leven was one size of the road and the
straight up hills on the other. We had booked our accommodation in the Glencoe independent hostel. which was aroud 3 miles from the bus stop. There was NISA shop at the start of the road towards Glecoe independent hostel only gocery store in the village. We picked up food stuff and started our walk along the banks of free flowing Coe river. I was bone tired, but the beauty of the was took all my tiredness away. walking 3 miles took us 1 hr and we reached the independent hostel. I must say in this whole journey this was the best hostel we stayed. We shared our room with a french couple. Neat rooms and kitchen. The loaction of the hostel was also quite nice. We had our food and then went into slumber. The cramps from the hiking was damaging as i caught fever, but i couldn't afford to have some, i was in the middle of a awesome trip.

It was raining in the morning! My legs were heavier than before, still we decided to follow our plan. We had planned to trek up to pap of glencoe. It wasn't a long trek. we wanted to climb up and then climb down before evening. The trail begins in between Glencoe village and the independent hostel. It was raining, still we decided to go ahead with the trek. While climbing up we realized why its a popular place. The landscape was one of the best i have ever witnessed. Our backpacks drenched in water became heavy and the legs started giving up after a while. So we decided to stop. There was no hope that we could make it to the top. The trail was quite clear and the map said the we were follwowing the trail which will take us to the toughest trek in the highlands. After spendin some time up there we started decending. We few hours to be back to Fortwilliam. So we spent time near the rive. Black water in the middle of the village will remind you the picture one holds for scotland. When we waited for our bus near Loch leven, Glencoe is some place i want to visit again.

When we came back to Fortwilliam we decide to visit the town centre. It was worth a visit. The souvenir shops were expensive but you can buy things certainly, also from the beginning what i wanted to see: the bagpipers. The usual parade was quite a show of perfection and tradition.

Inverness/Lochness

We didn't plan to stay for long in inverness. This scottish city is very small in size however it such a place where you can spent hours together. when we reached inverness via stagecoach bus, it was quite late. Most of the journey through the banks of Lochness. I must admit all the childhood stories and discovery show "mysteries and miths" came in a flash and the darkness started shadowing the lake. Its really massive to search any creature. We reached the hostel quitelate. Thankfull the youth hostel was very near to the bus stop. It was a crowded place, we came back to crowed actually. The cooperative shop was open so we picked up food and drinks and planned our next days travel.

Urquhart castle has a history but its not the history but the ruins attracted us because we knew thats the best place from where we can njoy Loch ness. To our happiness, the weather was awesome! so we packed our stuff and took the citylink bus (19) to the castle. we had done bit of research on the castle, but there were lot of other information available on the castle reception. It was quite scenic as you can see in the photograph. We had spend quite a bit of time there and decided to go back to Inverness. The bus frequency wasn't that good there on sunday however we had ample time to spend. We had decided to to spend that in Inverness.

I can write a whole new blog about inverness, but wont do that now. Will leave it for later. We went around to buy something which is a mark of the scotland. There were several things we watched, and then travelled back to the bus stand to catch the evening megabus that took us to London. We bought something: 30 yrs old Scotch!

Cherish best of Western Ghats: Ballalrayana Durg to Bandaje Arbi

It was a steady 200 meter cliff, the roaring sound of the Bandaje fall was interoducing me to the wildness lay in front of me, it was really a mesmerizing and breathe taking view. I was blank and was feeling much lighter, certainly it was more than what i promised myself.
Ballalrayana Durg to Bandaje waterfall trek is considered to be one of the toughest treks in Karnataka. With more and more people getting interest in trekking, many of the tough trekking spots have become picnic spot, so me and Santanu decided to go to some place where still there is serenity and challenging trails. We worked out a plan to go to Bandaje, after Ashok’s unsuccessful attempt to complete the trek because of a novice group, what we needed a group comprising of fit and supportive people. Kiran as we expected was ready to join, Ashok knew the route and wanted to finish the unaccomplished job. Rm, Pradipta too sounded pretty willing, it was 6 but then our unexpected group member Satyavir joind us. So we were seven. This trek needed lots of web searching to find the trek route. Bandaje Arbi is challenging trek because of its wildness and chances of getting lost inside the rain forest. There were many people who couldn’t complete the trek. After a long chat we decided to climb up from Sunkasale to Ballalrayana durg and from there Bandaje Arbi falls. Not many venture into that as I guess the trek to Ujjire to Bandaje is more adventurous. This trek had to be adventurous as we decided against a guided trek and trek routes were all mis-leading. We bought the essential stuff, a compass. We just knew the direction of the places So we decided to leave from here on 25^th of April. KSRTC Rajhamsa does not travel via Sunkasale, but other express buses do travel by that road. We decided to take the Rajhamsa to Horonadu, and we had to stop at a place called Kottigahar, its about 300 km from Bangalore. We reached Kempegouda bus station on time but the bus was late, eventually we found both bus and us were looking for each other for almost 30 min. the Bus was schedule to start at 22:25 hrs but started an hour late. We reached Kottigahara early morning 5. There are two ways to travel to Sunkasale, either by bus or by any small vehicle. Its around 19 km from Kottgahara. We hired a Maruti van. The road headed towards Kalasa, we had to take the right hand turn from Kottigahara. After about 7 km there is a v turn on that road which travels towards Sunkasale. The trek actually doesn’t start from Sunkasale, there is an estate called Kari khan estate from where actual walk starts. From Sunkasale there is a jeep trail which takes you to the estate, it comes just after the telecom office, we stopped at the place where the tar road ends, and started our two day adventure. The BR Durg appears on the left side of the road, the hill looks beautiful with thick early morning mist covering the hill top. The walls of the fort were visible from far our first destination. We reached the Ori khan estate to find few estate staffs from Rajasthan. We refreshed ourselves there and learnt from them that there are couple of trails can take us up there, one which takes less time but it was through that dense dangerous forest and the other one which starts just before the estate takes a longer but defined route, we preferred to take the first one as it would have saved our time. The forest was extremely thick and rain made the leach concentration irritably high, this trail went by the side of a wall appeared to me the same fort wall, the trail is defined here. By the time we reached the small stream, after an hour walk, all of us were panicked by the leaches, and badly attacked too; we stood still. The defined trail ends there!!! We didn’t know where to move. The forest was so thick it was literally impossible to move ahead, but our group had all daredevils. Me and Satyaveer moved way up and tried to make our way through the dense forest, but it was difficult. Fortunately we could see the grassland and Satyaveer wanted to check it out, I was following him but realized soon after it would be tough when I saw myself not able to reach the ground and a snake making its way below the rotten trunks. I wanted to call Satayaveer back but he found his way up and reached the grass land. All of us followed. It was quite a scary stretch, but all of us could reach there safely thanks to Satya. Once in the grass land we walked up to the walls of the fort and we could find the trail. All of us were exhausted but the picturesque landscape acted as an energizer. Weather was excellent. The place we reached wasn’t the main fort, so we started walking towards the west to reach the top most location. We walked towards the west and kept an eye on the main fort, it was 11:30 by then. After crossing some distance you can see that there is a man made ridge which travels along the trail. This can be seen from very far and from Bandaje this is the landmark one can follow to reach BR Durg. We stopped at a place to have our breakfast cum lunch. Ashok and Satyaveer went to look for the trail which will take us to the waterfall. We had our lunch with sandwiches and oranges and fruit juices. Once we are done few of us went to see the fort. The remnant of the fort is quite beautiful although almost non existent, but you can get a splendid panoramic landscape view from the top. After a long photo session we decided to move towards our next destination. The green hill tops with patches of forests were really captivating; the serenity of the landscape just isolated us from the outer world.
Ballalrayana Durg to Bandaje fall has a clear trail except the last one and half kilometer, but the tough job is to find the trail. We just knew we have to walk towards south from the BR Durg. Thanks to Ashok and Satyaveer we found the trail and we started our trekking towards the south. The weather was cloudy, and I had a feeling that probably beauty of Scotland will get heavy competition from this place. Many places I just stopped to absorb myself with this awesome environment. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the most picturesque landscape I have a chance to see. Nothing can match Western ghats. Its too powerful and seductive. Although there were few bifurcated trails entering inside the forests we avoided all of them. There was a rocky place and the clear trail disappeared. So we rested on that top after almost one hour of walk. We were just recollecting what we experienced. Ashok and Satyaveer mentioned this was the specific reason for their second attempt. After a brief stint on the top we had complete climb down towards the south. There were no signs of trails. It was rocky grassland and a steep descend. We headed towards the valley as Ashok and Satyavir recognize the places. We were nearing the Bandaje arbi. We could hear the noise from the waterfall, and our pace increased. We reached the Bandaje river, threw our rucksacks and ran towards the cliff. I was dumb stuck by the beauty; water was running down the hill for almost 150 meters just a perpendicular cliff and the whole region was surrounded by big hill covered with thick rain forest. The clouds were moving slowly and all of us for a moment were silent to hear the noise and quench the thirst. I just couldn’t move back, it was almost 3 and we decided to put up the tents before the sun sets. After the camping was done we took bath in the ice chilled water as the tiredness gripped us. It was a wild place, although Santanu carried a kerosene stove we decided to put on the wood fire for cooking. It was a constant effort from Rm Ashok which set the natural furnace burning. Our exotic diner started with noodles and taste was added through the lemon bought by Satyavir. Kiran as usual put things in places before we proceed through the diner process. It was an awesome evening. Not too cold, we could hear only the sounds from Cricket and the water fall. With this music on we finished our diner and resigned for the day. It was a very hard day. I didn’t expect such resilience from all of us. We were all fortunate that none of us became the slowest moving species controlling the trek. The constant noise from the waterfall kept me awake through the whole night. Truly it was a memorable night. Morning broke with thick mist stopping the sunrays penetrating the green valley. The river was really inviting and we plunged inside the water to have a second bath within 12 hrs. After a leisurely breakfast we started our second day’s trek. Ashok and Stayaveer were the guides as the way down was not easy if you don’t know the direction. We crossed the river and had a very steep climb which took us to the ridge of the side hill of the Bandage river we climbed down as we wanted to capture the falls, again I ran out of adjective to describe the beauty. The fall was thin, but still it was a real beauty. We were fortunate enough to come to this place. After a short stay we started walking down. There was a small water body which we crossed and came in front of the forest. We needed to find the entry point as we already had a bad experience while climbing up. The entry point was on the extreme right, there was a small rock marking the entry. One could see the water fall from here. We entered inside the wild ghat forest and the next 3 hr horror movie began. Once we were through some distance, the leaches in millions started attacking, it was horrible, salt and deodorant were so frequently used that our initial plan to stay together inside the jungle disappeared. We were literally on the run, we just could see the trail and walked fast, and it was a tough trail with many twists and turns and covered with the thick forest. It was one of thickest I have encountered. We knew all of us were in bad shape because of the leaches. The only advantage was the train was defined so we didn’t need to stop, Rm has a bad time as she slipped once. After more than an hour walk we reached the Bandaje river and got a chance to catch our breathe. Exhaustion was seen on our face, but not so much, with badly attacked m, Satyavir and Pradipta, we stayed at the river bed for almost an hour. It was almost 2 in the afternoon when we started descending again. This train was enjoyable as leaches were much less and forest was not so scary. We reached the bottom of the hill as Ashok said there will be 3 houses on the way, She was overjoyed to see the first one, her ecstasy became agony as she twisted her ankle. It was evident that it’s a bad bruise, and we were almos a good 2 km away from Bandaje, se showed extreme determination and traveled the distance without further trouble we reached Bandaje. We talked with Mr. Narayan Gowda who owns a quite a huge farming land, he was kind enough to arrange a jeep for us which would take us to Dhramsthala, via ujjire. We started traveling back to at 4 pm. Dharmasthala is around 30 km from Bandaje. We went to the main bus stand and caught an express bus at 6 pm which took us back to Bnnagalore at 3 in the morning. The journey back was extremely thrilling in the chadmadi ghats, but that’s a story itself. While coming back all in our group were having a tired face but there was a glee which said mission well accomplished! This was undoubtedly on of the best treks I ever made to. Extremely supportive and athletic group surely added to the flavour.

Approximate expense: Rs. 800/- per head

Wanna go for a treak :(

Today i dug out couple of pics from the PC. Feeling xtremely nostalgic wanna go for a trek before the last few left in our group disappear from Bangalore, these ones from our trek to Narsimhaparvata quite sometimes back, it was awesome place .....

here is another

Cool Coorg:Trek to Tadiandamol

Blame it on Thursday! Yes, because that was the night we decided to disappear from the IISc campus and travel to Tadyandamol. If you give a google search you will surely land up on hundreds of pages delivering a tons of details about Tadiandamol. Hence, it is quite evident that the place must be infested with trekkers. It was not a good news because most of the times we become busy in collecting the plastics or other junks ‘sensible’ trekkers throws on the way, but we had a different plan, we wanted to travel to Coorg by bike. It wasn’t easy job since it was 300 km away from Bengalooru and major part of it was a travel on the hills. Santanu is a able rider and was too confident about making it happen. Hence we caught a couple of hours of sleep and started out journey towards Kodagu district in Coorg.

There are different routes to reach Tadiandamol. For the first route one can take a right diversion just after Srirangpattanam on the Bangalore-Mysore highway and travel towards Virrajpet, this route goes via Gonikoppal and Honsur. Once you are in Virrajpet you have to take a left to reach Kakkabe. It is near 25 km from Virrajpet. Kakkabe is well connected to Virrajpet, though Bangalore is not so well connected to Virrajpet. The second route is to go to Madikere and from there you can come to Kakkabe through Betaagiri and Nopoklu. This distance is 37 km. Madikere is well connected by bus from Bangalore. Once you reach Kakkabe you have to look for the Palace! It’s not a very big one but this was sort of a mile stone from where you start your trek towards Tadiandamol.

We took the Virajpet route and reached near Kakkabe around 12:30 p.m. We did not stop anywhere except for asking for the route, Jackies’s steady hands made the travel a comfortable one. We had couple of plans, either to stay at the hills or reach Madikere and stay there. Near Kakkabe there are many Coffee estates which provide ‘home stay’ accommodation. We had planed for one such place called Honey valley next to Kabinikad post office, but it was not possible to take bike up there hence we started looking for some other place, there is another place called Palace Estate near the Palace, it’s a beautiful place but very costly on our standards. Then we found a place slightly cheaper than the other cottages. Most of the cottages there bear a sign board but not this one! You can identify it as the cottage just next to a motel called Coffee County and named as Twins Cottage. Mr. Ashok and his wife allow people the stay there and provide nice food too. We paid for both of us around Rs. 800/- for two days. It was a nice place and we found a shelter, now we had to arrange for our next days’ provisions for the trek. We decided to travel to Madikeri. The road which took us to Madikeri wasn’t the kind through which we traveled till then, it was quite worse, lots of hairpin curves, so it took us more than an hour to reach Madikeri. We had nice lunch there, it was good and cheap, and since we had time we had decided to travel to Abbi falls. Its not far from Madkeri, the road was good and picturesque for the forest and hills. We both had visited Abbi falls earlier so not much charm was left for us, still it was nice to come back to find the same place. I came here with our TMS gang, and had a major game session in the open field near the Abbi falls, unfortunately that open area is no longer existing, there are plantation, its hard to find that beautiful grass meadow. Then we started back to Kakkabe, it took us 1 hr. from Madikere to kakkabe and it was already dark when we came back to the warm shelter.

Kodagu district welcomed us after we crossed the Mysore industrial area; the forest check post announced the area to be under Rajiv Gandhi National Park. The Road was beautiful; wide 4 track black tar road was tearing apart the green forest which soon ended up in the coffee plantation area. The area appeared to be quite rich; we were in Coorg after all. The beautiful coffee estates were really a treat to watch, from Virrajpet the road turns up to the hill and nice valleys started appearing on the screen. Kakkabe is a very small village, typical Coorgy in nature. The Mahindra jeeps and different attires of females will surely catch your attention. The hospitality from Mr. Ashok and his wife was really praiseworthy.

Thick mist covered the whole valley in the morning with chill piercing through the flesh that led us to start bit late for the trek. The breakfast at the house was quite heavy and we, at once, realized that it would take time to digest, but again I liked the coffee more. From this twins cottage we had to travel to the Palace. My imagination ran t wild but this palace was a small one and enough to disappoint me. So we practically started walking from there. There was a tar road where it was possible to travel by Jeep, but we walked; calm steady and experienced legs were moving at a speed we are so used to. The tar road is through a rain forest covered hill and goes by the side of a small stream; we were thoroughly enjoying the silence. The trek rout is very clear; in fact it is possible to travel by jeep for one third of the trek route. The tar rod stretches for 3 km and then the mud road starts, there are diversions on the way but the trekking rout was quite clear. After crossing couple more streams we could see a glimpse of Tadiandamol peak. We were right in guessing that it will be almost 6 km away from the end of the tar road. So we continued our journey on this bright winter morning though the endless grass land, cool breeze and nice sun kept our tempo up. After one hour of walk we stood near a big stone and decided upon further journey details! Once we started climbing up the wind started gaining speed. The chill wind became unbearable after half way climb, till we entered the jungle. This trail for trek never enters the forest except a small part and I can assure you these are the dense most forest in Western Ghats, once you are lost inside, it requires GPS or a mobile phone to track you down. 10 min walk inside the forest was enough to give us this feeling. It was very similar to the one we experienced during our trek to Agumbe. The time we reached near the peak it was too windy. We reached the peak around 10:30 a.m., it was breath taking, if there is a place called heaven, I sure it wont be better than this. We chatted for a while there; gossiping at 1748 meters was a rare opportunity. Airtel welcomed us to Kerala with a full network signal in the cell phone at the peak; it was a worse feeling to be in touch with the world even there. There were many smaller peaks near Tadiandamol and the wind was not allowing us to sit there, we started climbing down and planned to climb up the other peaks near Tadiandamol. It was too early for lunch. We had our lunch on a rocky hill. It was standard lunch, cucumber! We couldn’t eat the bread or tomatoes we took with us. So it was time to climb down, we had a plan to travel to Madikere again have some time spent there. It was December 16th, Saturday, we expected a crowed there but fortunately not many trekkers around. We walked back to the foot of the hill and cleaned ourselves in a small stream inside the forest. We reached the palace around 2:30 p.m. since Jackie was insisting we went to see the palace, it was disappointed and I was happy that now visitors are not allowed inside. There is a school near to the palace and I saw some kids playing some game, I took the picture, can you guess what was the game? Hockey!!! and among that gang a small girl was playing better than her boy mates. Surely IHF will have a moral boosting. Night was calm at Kakkabe, Mr. Ashok’s and his hospitality again touched us. It was a beautiful experience staying with them. Jacike’s steady hands on the bike made the 300 km journey like a 20 km one; the tough roads didn’t affect him and his driving much. The bike did not give much trouble either. We came back to Bangalore by 3:00 p.m to witness India’s fight back in South Africa and my usual place where everyone was worried and complaining for disappearing without any information and there was somebody oblivious to all the happennings.

Some more pics

A day out to Muthati

Last october when Kotts was leaving for Germany, we had decided to go for a trek while he is here in March, the plan was almost spoiled but somehow we pulled out a trek to Mutthatti. We found this place through Karanataka forest dept. trekking web page. This is one of the trek places which are being explored after the death of Sandel wood smuggler Veerappan. Though it was a two day trek, we wanted to cut it short by one day. In order to save the time we went by bike. Four musketeers: Kiran, Me, Kotts and Jackie (santanu) were there for the trek, Galavalli was the only one missing (he is enjoying in US) from the group went to Narasimha Parvata last April. We sorted out our plans the previous day; reaching Muthatti was not much of a concern, only concern was biking back to Bangalore and hence we had decided to come back before Dusk that left us a trekking time of 6 hr.

We started our journey from Metallurgy dept. at IISc at around 5:30 a.m. Me and Jackie in one bike while Kiran was Kotts behind him. We went via Jayanagar and left the city via the Kanakpura road. The roads became better once we left the city! Bangalore to Kanakpura is 55 km by road and that was our first destination. We reached Kanakpura at 7: 00 a.m. and had our breakfast in a small restaurant. Kanakpura is quite big place. Our second destination was Sathnur, which is around 16 km. away from Kanakpura, and the satisfying fact was that road was really good in this stretch too. We reached there at around 8:15 a.m. Sathnur has three diversions at a circle, if you take the straight one you will reach Muthati, Left will take you to Bhimeswari and the right will take you to Cauvery fishing camp. We took the straight road. Muthati is 18 km away from Sathnur. The road was newly polished and you start experiencing bits of hills from here. It is onset of the summer and the traces of leaves on the foreground of clear blue sky appeared really beautiful. Our bikes gave a good service including one skid on the road side, except that our journey to Muthati was quite smooth. Muthati is a picnic spot like, Bhimeswari on the banks of cauvery, and like other picnic spot it was noisy, dirty with bottles and papers and chips packets. We avoided going to the river in Muthati. Instead we went to the forest office and fixed our trek route. The entry fees per head to the hills was Rs. 100/- and guide fee was Rs. 50/- per head. Mystery trails has all these details. Our guide was Mutthuraj, a young chap with cool nature. He trekked all along with us in bare feet. We started our trek at 9:30 a.m. The trails began with a thorny uphill climb. Our first trek destination was Devanamundi hills. The day was quite hot, though not unbearable. It wasn’t a very steep climbing up too. This place has quite a few specimens of wild animals we saw some signs of bear and Elephant while climbing up, but alas we couldn’t see them physically! We had to put few breaks before we reached the top of the hills. It is a typical ghats hill top: rocky and bare, no signs of shade. We took almost 2 hr to reach there. The Cauvary river valley was visible from the hill top. The river flowing by tearing apart the hills was a spectacular landscape to cherish. The complete valley was visible from there. If you have a strong eye you can identify the Chnichi water falls at extremely far away, the falls is like a white streak on the green background. I am sure sunset from that point will be a treat to watch. The peak was almost 4 km from Muthati. Our next destination was Bhimeswary, which is a place on the banks of Cauvary, hence we started descending. Almost complete trail was covered by leaf less trees! We stopped in the middle near a pond which appeared to be the main source of water for the animals; we saw a wild hare too. It was the first water body we had seen in the whole stretch. We traveled almost 3 km and there came a watch tower. We could see the basin and Bhimeswari from there. It was another 3 km before we reached the river. We found a bunch of spotted deer on the way. Mutthuraj took us to a place which was really beautiful, on the riverside. It was already 1:30 p.m. and we had to take our lunch. Kotts and Kiran prepared nice Cucumber, Pickle, Jam Sandwiches, with fruit juice, lunch became quite heavy, and so we decided to trek back to Muthati through the banks of Cauvery. I liked this stretch the most. We traveled almost 2.5 km through this trail. Both sides of the river had hills or forest and the landscape was very nice. We reached the picnic spots soon and our fun also disappeared, it was again a noisy, boozing people who were spoiling the environment. The last 3-4 km. we had to walk on asphalt road which was quite painstaking and took all our energy out by the time we reached Muthati forest office. We bade good bye to Mutthuraj and started our journey back to Bangalore. It was almost 3:30 p.m. Thanks to Kiran and Jackie we had a trouble free journey back to Bangalore. It was a nice one day trek, and a desirable break from droning campus life.


Trek route: Muthati –Devanamundi-Bhimeswary-Muthati
Distance: 15 km, approximate time: 6hr.
From Bangalore –Kanakpura (55 km)-Sathnur (16 km)-Muthati(18 km)
Approximate expenditure: per head Rs.500-600/-
Orgnized by: Kanakpura forest office ( Ph No.080-7522537)